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Q&As since 1989


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You sent me 18k white?

My husband and I run a goldsmith shop in our hometown. One of the frequent requests we get are creating a custom wedding band to match an engagement ring (unfortunately we hardly ever get the sale of the engagement ring, seems we always get just the hard work!). A recent job we had was to match a wedding band for the opposite side of a customers wedding set. It was stamped 18k white gold, about 30 years old and still nicely white in color. We don't cast in our shop so we sent it away to a casting company that we have dealt with for years. When the cast came back the ring was noticeably yellow compared to the customers original set. We had experienced this in 14k white before but never 18k. The three rings had to be soldered together. We had no choice but to rhodium plate the ring just to get it looking like it matched the original set.(we don't practice rhodium plating, in fact if a manufactured ring comes in the plating comes off before it goes in the display case). It's just a matter of time before we see that lady back in our shop to confront us about the ring. Is that fair to goldsmith, when we've relied on having an 18k white ring come to us white for years and now we're being let down, possibly making our customers question our business practices. Heck no! This business is so frustrating at times, we're second generation goldsmiths and have been in this business for 40 plus years and have seen so many changes to this industry. We have to deal with crappy jewelry (85% of the industry sells) to try to repair and gold suppliers that you can't rely on. Yeah, I'm happy to admit I'm a goldsmith!

Kris Gardner
- Canada
2003

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We are experiencing a similar problem in obtaining true white castings in 18 kt. We are currently using a very high nickel alloy, but it is difficult to work with and diamonds are being chipped too often. We looked into palladium alloys but found them to be brownish or muddy-white, and so they still need to be rhodium plated, a practice we are not eager to begin. I was curious if you (or anyone else out there) had any luck finding 18k white that is truly white.

Thanks,

Kevin Cousins
Jewelry - Mesa, Arizona
2004

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